FG set to establish grains aggregation centres

Disclosing this to Daily Trust in an exclusive interview recently in Abuja, the Director, Strategic Grains Reserve Department of the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Dr. Jide Olumeko, said the grains aggregation centres will be private sector driven so as to enable the project to function effectively and be sustainable.Dr. Olumeko further said […]

Disclosing this to Daily Trust in an exclusive interview recently in Abuja, the Director, Strategic Grains Reserve Department of the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Dr. Jide Olumeko, said the grains aggregation centres will be private sector driven so as to enable the project to function effectively and be sustainable.
Dr. Olumeko further said that the arrangement will give Nigerian farmers the opportunity to bring their produce to the centres close to them and sell at the guaranteed minimum price and not at a loss.
“Very soon the grains aggregation centres will be ready across the country and the word glut will likely not exist again. Our farmers will no longer complain of unsold produce. Any quantity they cannot sell will be mopped up by the operators of the centres. At the centres, there will be complete sets of equipment for cleaning, drying and bagging,” he told our reporter.
On the widespread fear that rice farmers who said they were unable to sell their paddy rice harvested last year may abandon their farms this year, the director said that the agriculture minister, Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, has directed the department to mop up the unsold paddy rice.
“We bought paddy rice from the farmers about two months ago at the guaranteed minimum price and we will make sure all the excess paddy rice are mopped up to encourage the farmers to continue production. It’s a continuous process,” Dr. Olumoke said.
Speaking on the rice self-sufficiency target of the federal government, he told our reporter that although the country’s rice output has tremendously increased, there is still shortfall, which the government is addressing.
He was optimistic that combined production from the rainy and dry seasons rice farming will soon make the country go beyond rice self-sufficiency level, and Nigerian rice will be exported to other countries of the world to earn foreign exchange.
On the capacity of the silos in the country, Dr. Olumeko disclosed that Nigeria has 33 silos in various states of the federation with total capacity of 1.36 million metric tonnes.
He told Daily Trust that the federal government has sizable quantity of grains in stock to withstand food scarcity situation that may arise from any emergency, but declined to give the figure for “strategic and security reasons.”
The director noted that High Quality Cassava Floor (HQCF), which is an industrial product, was recently listed in the commodities covered by the strategic grains reserve to ensure success of the cassava bread initiative.
HQCF brings to seven the number of commodities in their list. “We have maize, paddy rice, sorghum, millet, soya bean and gari in the reserve, but the recent one, HQCF is not in the reserve,” Dr. Olumeko stated.